Don advocates adequate subsidy for agricultural inputs

A don, Professor Ernest Adeniyi Aiyedun, has advised the federal government to subsidise agricultural inputs in order to boost food production in the country. Aiyedun, a professor of agricultural economics, spoke in a paper entitled: “Agriculture and the Nigerian Economy: Matter Arising,” presented at the 17th inaugural lecture at the University of Abuja last week. […]

A don, Professor Ernest Adeniyi Aiyedun, has advised the federal government to subsidise agricultural inputs in order to boost food production in the country.
Aiyedun, a professor of agricultural economics, spoke in a paper entitled: “Agriculture and the Nigerian Economy: Matter Arising,” presented at the 17th inaugural lecture at the University of Abuja last week.
He said there was no country in the world where agriculture was successful and the people well fed without subsidising agriculture.
He also advocated that bank lending rate for agricultural enterprises, adding: “It is only when we can meaningfully stabilise agricultural inputs that we can talk of industrialisation and the role of the middle men in agricultural inputs procurement should be minimized.”
He observed that many successive administrations did nothing to sustain the river basin authorities and agricultural research programmes, thereby forcing their collapse.
He stated that research institutes together with the faculties of agriculture in Nigerian universities have produced proven cultural packages for the enhancement of agricultural productivity.
“And some of these packages include those on optimum spacing, time of sowing/planting, fertiliser requirements, farming systems, disease and pest management, weed control storage, processing and transport facilities,” he said.
Aiyedun, therefore, recommended tougher penalty against smugglers of food items across Nigeria’s borders, describing smuggling as dangerous to Nigeria’s economy.
He also recommended the need for having a realistic exchange rate value for the naira, saying the low exchange rate value of the country’s currency in the international market was having a negative effect on the importation of farm inputs, such as herbicides, pesticides, and farm equipment.